Weight and Balance Considerations for Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Applied to the Parallel Electric-Gas Architecture with Synergistic Utilization Scheme (PEGASUS) Concept

Frederick, Zachary J.; Blaesser, Nathaniel J.; Valdez, Felipe; Hanson, Curt

doi:10.2514/6.2021-2449

Cited by 5 publications

References 5 publications

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Certification-Constrained Vertical Tail Sizing and Power Split Optimization for Distributed Electric Propulsion Aircraft

Xie

Cai

Sarojini

et al. 2023

Journal of Aircraft

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Distributed electric propulsion (DEP) concepts leverage the synergistic benefits of aeropropulsive coupling and improve the overall flight efficiency by placing propulsors at optimal locations, such as the wingtip. However, placing propulsors far away from the aircraft centerline may bring aircraft difficulties in complying with critical-engine-inoperative flight certification rules. To investigate the impact of certification requirements on the DEP aircraft design, this paper takes NASA’s PEGASUS concept as a use case and presents a study of certification-constrained vertical tail sizing and propulsive power split optimization. For comparison, a vertical tail retrofit study is also conducted on the ATR 42-500 aircraft using the same design space, to gain insights into the different impacts of certification constraints on the design process between conventional and unconventional aircraft. In each study, a design space exploration is performed, including a feasibility test and a multi-objective optimization. The feasibility test shows that the certification constraints yield a much smaller feasible design space for the DEP concept when compared to the conventional aircraft. Despite a much smaller feasible design space, the constrained Pareto optima of the PEGASUS still exhibit lower cruise drag coefficient, fuel burn, and operational energy cost when compared to those of the ATR 42.

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Certification-Constrained Vertical Tail Sizing and Power Split Optimization for Distributed Electric Propulsion Aircraft

Xie

Cai

Sarojini

et al. 2023

Journal of Aircraft

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Quantifying Impacts of Uncertainties on Certification-Driven Design

Xie,

Harrison,

Mavris

2024

Journal of Aircraft

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Airworthiness certification is challenging for novel aircraft concepts. To avoid the significant cost associated with the redesign for certification compliance, incorporating certification requirements into early aircraft design is desired for unconventional aircraft. However, epistemic uncertainties arising from modeling assumptions, and aleatory uncertainties stemming from uncontrollable noise factors may have impacts on the certification analysis and certification-constrained design process. This paper presents an uncertainty quantification study based on a certification-constrained design and optimization study previously conducted for NASA’s Parallel Electric–Gas Architecture with Synergistic Utilization Scheme (PEGASUS) concept. The epistemic uncertainties are modeled through a set of multiplicative factors applied to intermediate disciplinary variables. The sensitivity analysis between design metrics and multiplicative factors reveals that uncertainties in stability and control derivatives can significantly affect certification constraint predictions, and uncertainties in drag approximations have considerable impacts on the vehicle sizing process. The aleatory uncertainties added to flight dynamics simulations include wind velocities and variations of weight and center of gravity. Four representative design candidates are evaluated for their robustness against aleatory uncertainties based on the Monte Carlo simulation performed on noise factors. The results show that aleatory uncertainties can affect the aircraft dynamic responses in flight test simulations, thus compromising certification compliance.

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Vertical Tail Sizing and Power Split Optimization for the PEGASUS Concept Considering Certification Requirements

Xie

Cai

Sarojini

et al. 2022

AIAA AVIATION 2022 Forum

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Weight and Balance Considerations for Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Applied to the Parallel Electric-Gas Architecture with Synergistic Utilization Scheme (PEGASUS) Concept

Cited by 5 publications

References 5 publications

Certification-Constrained Vertical Tail Sizing and Power Split Optimization for Distributed Electric Propulsion Aircraft

Certification-Constrained Vertical Tail Sizing and Power Split Optimization for Distributed Electric Propulsion Aircraft

Quantifying Impacts of Uncertainties on Certification-Driven Design

Vertical Tail Sizing and Power Split Optimization for the PEGASUS Concept Considering Certification Requirements

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